Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump on Monday night asked a federal judge to postpone his trial indefinitely on charges of illegally withholding classified documents after he left office. presented and decided.
The written submission — filed 30 minutes before Tuesday’s midnight deadline — represents an important early test for Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the Trump-appointed attorney overseeing the case. If awarded, it could have the effect of pushing Mr Trump’s trial into the final stages of the presidential campaign, where he is now the Republican front-runner, or even past the 2024 election.
While timing is important in any criminal case, it could have huge ramifications in the case of Mr. Trump, in which he is accused of illegally keeping 31 classified documents after he left the White House and the administration’s repeated attempts to recovery has been hindered.
There could be complications of a kind never before presented to a court when Mr. Trump is a candidate in the final stages of a presidential campaign and a federal criminal defendant on trial at the same time. If the trial is postponed until after the election and Mr. Trump wins, he could try to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the case entirely.
Some of the former president’s advisers have said outright in private conversations that he wants to win the election as a solution to his legal problems. And the request for an indefinite adjournment for the trial of Mr. Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, a personal assistant, poses an important question for Judge Cannon, who entered the case already under investigation for rulings favorable for the former president in the early stages of the investigation.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers submitted their request to Judge Cannon as a plea for prudent deliberation and as a means of preserving democracy.
“This extraordinary case poses a serious challenge to both the fact and the perception of our American democracy,” they wrote.
“The court is now presiding over a prosecution brought by the administration of a sitting president against his chief political rival, himself a leading candidate for the presidency of the United States,” they wrote. “Therefore, an informed consideration and timeline that allows a careful and complete assessment of the proceedings leading up to this indictment and the unprecedented legal issues presented herein best serve the interests of the defendants and the public.”
The lawyers also noted the unusual intertwining of law and politics in the case, suggesting that Mr Trump’s status as a presidential candidate should be factored into the timing of the trial.
“President Trump is running for president of the United States and is currently the likely candidate for the Republican Party,” they wrote. “This undertaking requires enormous amounts of time and energy, and that effort will continue until the elections on November 5, 2024.”
“Mr. Nauta’s job requires him to accompany President Trump on most of the country’s campaign tours,” they continued. “This schedule makes trial preparation with both defendants challenging. Such preparation requires a great deal of planning and time.”
The filing came in response to an application filed last month by prosecutors working for special counsel, Jack Smith, who requested a trial date of Dec. 11. the case will go to court in August.
On Monday, hours before Mr Trump’s lawyers asked for the trial to be postponed, a lawyer for Mr Nauta asked Judge Cannon to postpone a hearing to address the issue of the classified material in the case scheduled for Friday. to discuss. The defense and prosecution finally agreed to postpone the hearing, which will take place in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Florida, until next Tuesday.
Judge Cannon has yet to approve that roster change.
To make their case for delaying the trial, Trump’s lawyers cited the extensive discovery evidence provided to them by the government.
The initial disclosure, they said, contained more than 833,450 pages of material, including about 122,650 emails and 305,670 other documents. The lawyers said that after the next large amounts of evidence were handed over, they would most likely make more requests to the government for more information.
The lawyers also pointed to the complex process of deciding how to deal with the sensitive materials at the center of the case under the Secret Information Procedures Act – the subject of the hearing scheduled for Friday. The lawyers strongly hinted that they would fight the government in the trial over classified material, a process that could take a long time.
“In general, the defendants believe that there simply should be no ‘secret’ evidence, nor facts to be concealed from the public, regarding the persecution of a leading presidential candidate by his political opponent,” the lawyers wrote. “Our democracy demands no less than full transparency.”
Aside from requesting a stay, the filing served as a preview of Mr Trump’s legal strategy as the lawyers outlined ways they planned to attack his charges.
For example, the lawyers suggested they plan to challenge some of the charges against him by arguing that the Presidential Records Act allowed Mr. Trump to take documents from the White House. That interpretation of the Watergate-era law is at odds with how legal experts interpret it, and was unsuccessful during an extensive legal battle last year over an outside arbitrator appointed to review a wealth of material found by the FBI in Mar-a was confiscated. -Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.
Mr Trump’s lawyers also suggested they could file “constitutional and legal challenges” against Mr Smith’s authority as special counsel. In addition, they sowed the seeds of whether an impartial jury could sit during the trial while Mr. Trump ran for office.
“There is no doubt that a trial of this action during the upcoming presidential election will affect both the outcome of that election and, more importantly, the defendants’ ability to receive a fair trial,” they wrote.
